Japanese Internment Memorial

The Japanese internment was the forced relocation and internment of around 120,000 Japanese Americans by the US Government in 1942. This event happened because the government was suspicious of Japanese spies after the attack on Pearl Harbor and it was the peak of Japanese dislike in the United States after numerous amounts of immigrants arrived in the U.S. over the first half of the 20^th century and had taken what American’s felt was most of the jobs. On February 26, 1942, President Roosevelt authorized the internment with Executive Order 9066. This order specifically allowed local military leaders to designate “military areas” as “exclusion zones”, from which “any or all persons may be excluded.” This caused all people of Japanese ancestry, U.S. citizens or not, to be excluded from the entire Pacific Coast because of its close proximity to Japan. They were only allowed to stay on the Pacific Coast if they were in internment camps.

Ruth Asawa is a Japanese American artist who is best known for her sculpture art. She started drawing and sketching when she was a young girl and it contined throughout her life. She is also a former internee. Born to Japanese immigrant parents, Ruth was a U.S. Citizen by birth but because of her family, was sent to the internment camp in 1942. She and her family lived in horse stables at the Santa Anita Race Track internment camp for six months before being moved to Rowher, Arkansas where another camp was. She graduated high school there and received a scholarship from the Quakers to study at Milwaukee State Teachers College. She eventually studied art at Black Mountain College and then moved to San Francisco with her white husband. There they raised six children and she continued to do her art.

In the early 1900’s Japanese male immigrants who had come to the area began to settle next to San Jose’s established Chinatown. By the time World War II came around, there were around 53 businesses up and running. However, the Executive Order 9066 put a stop to it and Japantown was essentially shut down. When the war ended and Executive Order 9066 was revoked, around 100 families came back and re-established themselves and re-opened their businesses. Japantown is located between Jackson St. and Taylor St. east of Sixth St. in downtown San Jose.

Yoshiro Uchida Hall on the San Jose State University campus was used as a transfer point to evacuate people of Japanese ancestry in San Jose and Santa Clara. There is a long-standing tale that because of this, Uchida Hall is haunted.

Ruth Asawa created the Japanese American Internment Memorial in front of the Federal Building on Second St. to commemorate those who went through internment in this area and to remind us all of what happened. It is a stunning display of the lives of Japanese immigrants in the area and how much their lives changed because of Executive Order 9066. The first panel on the side facing Paseo de San Antonio depicts the farming life that most Japanese immigrants knew when they first arrived. It shows them working the fields and in the stables tending to the horses. These people came to America looking for a better life for themselves and eventually for their families. Unfortunately what happened between the first panel and the last panel is a sad tale of betrayal by the very country that promised them a better life.

The very last panel of the memorial, on the opposite side, depicts Japanese American men sitting at a table with the Capitol building behind them. This is in memory of the legislation that Congress passed and President Reagan signed in 1988, formally apologizing for the internment on behalf of the U.S. government. The legislation was worded as saying that the government’s actions during this time were based on “race prejudice, wary hysteria and a failure of political leadership.” Also, money was awarded to each surviving person who had been interned.

To me, this event should have never happened. Unfortunately, we cannot change the history of our country. However, we can learn from it and we should make sure that nothing remotely like this ever occurs again. We live in a completely different world from 1942.